[1]
By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with [2]
Evidence from the US Air Force (USAF) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released in federal court this week ahead of a bail hearing for Jack Teixeira, the junior airman accused of leaking top secret Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) briefing papers, reveals that Teixeira was under close surveillance and official investigation from September 2022 through February 2023. That is six months before he allegedly printed out the JCS documents, and then published photographs of the papers on a social media site.
The new USAF and FBI evidence records Teixeira pocketing handwritten notes of what he had been reading; there is no evidence of his being able to print out copies of the documents.
The court hearing, held on Friday afternoon May 19 in US federal district court in Worcester, Massachusetts, ended in a ruling by Judge David Hennessy to deny bail for Teixeira and keep him in prison while his state trial is prepared. “The danger he poses to the community is a grave one,” Hennessy said during the 45-minute hearing. “Court states the relative law with respective to this matter,” the court clerk has recorded in the case docket [3]. “Court grants the Government’s motion for detention, ordering the Defendant detained, and states reasons therefore.”
“The decision was a victory for the government, which is seeking to send the strongest possible message to potential leakers”, the New York Times reported [4] from the courtroom.
The evidence revealed by the government , which the newspaper and every other mainstream and alternative medium in the US are failing to report, demonstrates the opposite.
[5]To read the court case docket up to date, click [3].
The FBI evidence in the court file, prepared by a special agent Luke Church, records Teixeira as telling other chatroom members on January 4, 2023 – two months before the Pentagon Papers were published on the site – that he had no intention of copying classified documents and then posting them on the internet. “Shooting myself in the back of the head twice isn’t something im fond of”, he said in an internet exchange obtained by the FBI from the site server.
His motivation, Teixeira also wrote, was to show off to the chatroom members how important he was. “I work with NRO [National Reconnaissance Office], NSA [National Security Agency], NGA [National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency], and DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] people mostly. Tbh [to be honest] I’d rather get a comfy position at MSIC [Missile and Space Intelligence Center], or NASIC [National Air and Space Intelligence Center]…I had to go through indoc[trination] for TS/SCI [Top Secret/Special Compartmented Intelligence]. I’m on JWICS [Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System] weekly. Knowing what happens more than pretty much anyone else is cool.”
However, when another of the chatroom members asked him on November 22: “what is being said now about this loose Ukrainian missile?” Teixeira replied that he was at home sick. “When I get back however I will let you know.” There is no record in court that he did. The “loose Ukrainian missile” referred to the incident on November 15, 2022, when two Polish farm workers at Przewodów were killed by a missile fired from across the border with Ukraine; read the details here [6].
Aiming at a future career in a US intelligence agency or contractor, Teixeira went on to say on January 4, 2023, that disclosing classified intelligence “would be the equivalent of what chelsea manning did”. This reference to the military records leaked by Manning to Julian Assange, for which she was convicted and imprisoned and he is being prosecuted for espionage, led to the warning from the site participant: “better be careful then”. “I am”, Teixeira replied [7].
[8]To read the FBI agent’s sworn testimony, click [9].
Three weeks later, on January 26, 2023, the new court evidence from the FBI reveals, Teixeira told others on his site chat: “im spooked about my [site] account for my background check, ban my ass from your server and select the delete all message history option.. im purging my accounts recently..ill be back later im just going through background checks rn so im being extra careful.”
The “background checks” to which Teixeira referred in late January followed evidence reported to the court by the 102d Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, the unit in which Teixeira served (lead image). The unit reported the discovery on September 15, 2022, that Teixeira had “been observed taking notes on classified information…and put the note into his pocket.” The note [10]was removed and shredded; Teixeira was “instructed to no longer take notes in any form on classified intelligence information”. Additional orders have been blacked out in the court filing.
From then on Teixeira knew he was under close surveillance; twice again, on October 25, 2022 [11], and on January 30, 2023 [12], he was detected breaking the “cease-and-desist [order] on any deep dives into classified intelligence information”.
The USAF documents reveal Teixeira was reported as viewing and making notes from “a JWICS machine”. This refers to the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System [13] which had been the source of the Wikileaks of Manning and Assange. However, despite Teixeira’s repeated boasting of the high-level secrets he was privy to, there is no FBI record that he mentioned the JCS.
No evidence has appeared in court that in early March Teixeira had gained access to the Ukraine war situation reports discussed at meetings of the JCS, or that he had used a printer to copy them out for republication on his website. These are the leaks which form the most sensitive part of the espionage case against Teixeira. Because they reveal the Pentagon’s assessment that the Ukraine war cannot be won, and that counting the war risks defeat of US military capabilities in NATO, the source and the motive for the leak have been identified as coming from the senior commanders of the USAF. For more, read this [14].
Teixeira’s lawyers from the public defender’s office in Boston have yet to file a plea on his behalf; there are signs in the court record that plea bargaining over entrapment has already begun [15].
[16]The USAF evidence [17], now available in the court file, indicates an improbability between unlikelihood and impossibility that Teixeira could have printed out copies of the JCS papers on the Ukraine war and then published them without connivance and help from the USAF member of the JCS, General Charles
Brown.
The evidence presented so far in the public court record — albeit with half the lines redacted — indicate the scope of the evidence which the Air Force command, the Joint Chiefs, Defense Department, FBI, Department of Justice in Washington, and the District Attorney in Boston are keeping secret. They know exactly which files, documents and other classified materials Teixeira accessed and viewed on the JWICS computer from September 15, 2022, until his arrest on April 6. They also know when the handwritten notetaking was replaced by copying on a printer at his airbase; and exactly when he copied the documents which later appeared on the internet. If that’s what Teixeira did on his own.
The government officials and investigators have already compared what these records reveal of the extent of Teixeira’s access with what the Bellingcat organization has reported in the New York Times of the leaks alleged to have been Teixeira’s doing , based on what Bellingcat claims to have been given by their government “open sources”. In time, if not already, Teixeira and the defence lawyers will have noticed the gap between what he did and what has been published. That’s the black hole in this case, the Topmost Secret of all.